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Public Law & Policy

The following public law and policy courses are available:

 

Administrative Law

This basic course concentrates on the fundamental legal principles surrounding federal administrative agencies, including legislative, executive and judicial control of administrative action; the exercise of administrative power; and structures of agency decision making.

American Federalism Seminar

This course explores historical and jurisprudential perspectives on American federalism, with attention to "the original understanding" of 1787; 19th century constitutional issues in light of governmental practice and law in individual states; modern phases of intergovernmental relations; and radical, conservative and technocratic critiques of contemporary federalism.

Cities, Stratification and Separation Seminar

This course will examine the new American metropolis, mapping its social, political, and economic geography. Today's cities face a troubling trend: They grow increasingly diverse and increasingly separate at the same time. In a post-civil rights era, individuals express a growing receptivity to diversity, yet patterns of segregation and stratification are worsening. Although de jure segregative practices are largely a relic of the past, law and policy continue to play a significant role in shaping the possibilities for life in the city. Official practices can make urban areas fluid sites of opportunity and change, or they can entrench difference and division. In this class, we will explore how these practices have evolved, how they currently operate, and what the future likely holds for city dwellers in California and the nation.

Students will be required to do an in-class presentation and a paper on a topic related to law and policy in urban areas. Enrollment is limited.

Comparative Constitutional Law

Constitutional Law: Basic Issues

This course provides an introduction to judicial review. Students also study individual rights, focusing on equal protection and due process.

Constitutional Law: First Amendment

This course covers freedom of the press, speech, association and religion, combining coverage of the major issues with in-depth analysis, thus enabling the class to deal with new problems as they arise.

Constitutional Law: Structural Issues

This course explores constitutional law at a deeper level. Students examine the structure of the Constitution and how it affects the law and judicial review.

Courts and Social Policy

This seminar explores the politics or rights. The first few sessions examine classical views ont eh forms and limits of adjudication (Fuller, Chayes, Fiss), the political setting of course, drawing on comparative and historical materials that locate courts in larger social context. Following this we then turn to examine several specific sets of issues with which courts have been heavily involved: prison conditions, school segregation, employment discrimination, comparable pay, and school finance. Readings ard materials are drawn from diverse sources, but consist primarily of empirical studies by social scientists that assess the impact of court decisions and judicial intervention, commentary by lawyers representing plaintiffs in these cases, and various types of critical legal theorists who reflect on the nature and the limits of the law as a vehicle for social change. Questions that will be addressed int eh seminar include: Can and should courts be policy makers? Are they effective policy makers? Can courts effect significant social change? Can courts be catalysts for social movement?

 

Domestic Violence Practicum


Students in the Domestic Violence Practicum work in one of several government agencies or nonprofit offices in the Bay Area, or with the instructor on state legislation. They may also assist with post-conviction issues faced by battered women in state prisons. Students interview clients; draft restraining orders, VAWA petitions, memoranda, op-ed pieces and motions; represent clients at hearings; research policy issues; and attend meetings with government officials, judges and legislators.

Students are encouraged to enroll in the companion seminar, Domestic Violence Law.

 

Domestic Violence Law Recommended Companion Seminar


This course will examine the legal system's response to domestic violence. Students are encouraged to enroll in the Domestic Violence Practicum (Law 295.5Q) as well. Using an interdisciplinary approach, we will cover historical and psychological materials as well as topics in criminal, family, tort, immigration, welfare, and constitutional law. Ethical and policy issues will be included throughout, as will discussion of how domestic violence affects different groups - people of color, disabled women, etc.

Class will include discussion of problems of protective orders, and the efficacy of "mandatory arrest" or "no drop" prosecution policies. In the realm of family law, the class will consider how domestic violence is or should be taken to account in custody proceedings, examining how alternative dispute resolution methods, such as mediation, work or don't work in the context of domestic violence. The class will also look at interstate custody problems affecting battered women who flee with their children.

The course will consider how traditional intentional torts have applied to domestic violence, and the erosion of interspousal immunity. The liability of police departments and other government bodies for failure to enforce protective orders or to otherwise act to protect victims of domestic violence will also be an issue. The class will evaluate welfare issues affecting battered women. The legal rights and problems of immigrant and refugee battered women will also be covered. The pros and cons of medical personnel reporting domestic violence to police will also be addressed. The class will cover battered women as complaining witnesses and as defendants, including the claim of self-defense, and the use of expert testimony on the common experiences of victims of domestic violence.

The class will use the small group discussion format. Several guest speakers and videotapes will be included. Grading will be Credit/ No Credit. A research project in lieu of a final exam is possible. No limit on enrollment.

 

Education and the Law

In recent years the aspirations of U.S. educational policy (toward elementary and secondary schools) have been an uneasy mix of equity, excellence and choice. This seminar looks at the ideas behind these aspirations and the way these themes have influenced life for schoolchildren, with a view toward the future and charting a reform agenda for the next generation. Topics include the role of the judiciary in shaping the contours of educational reform, school vouchers and charter schools, racial isolation in schools, school finance reform, and educational accountability strategies.

Federal Courts

This course covers the constitutional and statutory role of courts in the federal system, focusing on the jurisdiction of the federal courts, their relation to the state courts, and the roles of federal and state law.

Federal Indian Law

This course concerns the legal relationships among American Indian tribes, the United States, and individual states. Topics covered include the history of American Indian law; conflicting tribal, state and federal jurisdiction over persons and property on Indian lands; tribal sovereignty and self-determination; and natural resources on Indian lands.

Health Law

This course covers emerging questions in health law that cut across problems of managed care, access to treatment, regulation of genetic medicine, information privacy, biotechnology, intellectual property, individual constitutional rights, discrimination, reproductive issues, euthanasia, malpractice, medical research, and many more.

Labor Law

This course considers the fundamental legal principles affecting labor relations in the private sector workplace, as incorporated in the National Labor Relations Act and related legislation. Several topics will be reviewed, including union organizing and elections, collective bargaining, strikes, boycotts, arbitration and individual employee rights within unions.

Legal Institutions

When compared to other industrialized democracies, the United States seems more likely to resort to courts for enforcement of public norms, dispute settlement and political action. American methods of policy implementation and dispute resolution generally seem more legalistic and costly than those of comparable nations. This course asks: Is this assessment accurate? If so, why do these patterns recur? And are they a bad thing?

Legislation

This course examines the legislative process, the relationship between the common law and statutes, and statutory interpretation. It focuses on the theoretical and practical aspects of statutory interpretation, including overall theories of interpretation, the canons of statutory interpretation and the use of legislative history.

Local Government Law

This course examines the dimensions of local government law from a doctrinal and theoretical perspective. The course considers how the community is defined, that is, how it determines who gets in and out. It also explores the nature and scope of the community's relationships with state and federal government, its residents and its neighbors.

Mental Health Law

Minority Vote Dilution

This course will examine constitutional and statutory efforts to secure the right(s) of full political participation to people of color in the United States. The course will begin with a history of the struggle for the franchise (examined in both its political and legal dimensions), extending from the post-civil war amendments to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Its primary focus will be on statutory and constitutional vehicles for preventing vote dilution among racial and language minorities, particularly sections 2 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act. We will look at contexts including single v. multimember districts, decennial census-based reapportionment, annexation and de-annexation, and changes in the responsibilities of elected officials. We will also study the limits on post-census redistricting and voting rights remedies imposed by constitutional decisions such as Shaw v. Reno. The course will conclude with a brief survey of the alternative voting systems that may complement or ultimately replace supermajority minority districts as the remedy of choice after Shaw.

Regulating Public Integrity

Over the past twenty-five years, public officials at every level and in every branch of government have increasingly been subject to a wide-range of public integrity regulations, from conflict of interest rules, to lobbying restrictions, to campaign finance laws. This increased regulation has spawned a new field of legal practice that has come to be known as ôpolitical law.ö Because laws regulating public integrity often operate in the area of political expression, they give rise to difficult constitutional questions. They also raise significant policy questions about the appropriate standards of behavior for public officials, from local planning commissioners to federal judges. The study of these issues is important not only to lawyers who advise, prosecute, or defend public officials and candidates, but also to lawyers whose clients have a stake in government decisions. State conflict of interest rules may determine the outcome of a client's local land-use decision as much as property rules or environmental regulations, and failure to comply with lobbying or campaign finance regulations can undermine a client's legislative strategy. This course will explore these issues through the examination of conflict of interest, lobbying, and campaign finance regulations, and the disciplinary regimes that govern federal, state, and local elected and appointed officials.

Telecommunications

This course examines the statutory, administrative and constitutional foundations for the regulation of voice, video and data communications. Course material includes broadcast, cable, wireless and telephone systems, as well as new and emerging communications technologies. The course covers the historical development of related laws and the major issues currently being debated in several key areas of telecommunications regulation.

U.S. Supreme Court Seminar

Consideration in depth of nine cases (mostly Constitutional Law) that will be decided during the present term of the U.S. Supreme Court. Each student will be assigned the role of learning the basic constitutional views of a current Justice of the Supreme Court for the purpose of (1) advancing that Justice's position on each of the cases, and (2) writing one majority opinion of substantial magnitude, and at least one concurrence or dissent. The seminar will meet most weeks during both semesters. Enrollment is limited to 18 students (two per Justice); in case of oversubscription, preference will be given to 3rd years who have taken (first preference), or are taking (next preference), Con Law: Basic Issues , or Con Law: First Amendment, or Federal Courts or Criminal Procedure.

Voting Rights